[7] Julianne Moore stars in this true story based on the life of Evelyn Ryan, a ’50s housewife and mother of ten who kept her family afloat by writing award-winning marketing jingles. Director Jane Anderson manages to keep the movie light and airy, which keeps in tone with Evelyn’s indomitable spirit, but without short shrifting the film’s more serious, underlying statements about gender roles. Both …
[8] Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, and Frank Whaley play tight-knit German teenagers rebelling against the growing Nazi party by embracing a counter culture of long hair and banned U.S. swing music. But as each of the boys is pressured into joining Hitler’s Youth organization, difficult and deadly decisions are made. Swing Kids is surprisingly dark for a film hiding under a Disney-esque veneer. And …
[3] Mel Gibson plays a drug dealer trying to come clean. Kurt Russell plays a cop assigned to bring Mel down. Trouble is, they’re kinda friends. And now they’re both sort of in love with the same woman, a restaurant owner played by Michelle Pfeiffer. All three leading actors are beautiful to look at, especially in Conrad Hall’s Oscar-nominated cinematography. But writer/director Robert Towne’s script …
[8] Writer/director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) takes on the life and work of sexual research pioneer Alfred Kinsey, whose teachings and publications caused a national uproar in the late ’40s and 50s. If you think America is sexually prudish and repressed now, try to imagine what it was like back in Kinsey’s day, with most people constantly wondering, “Am I normal?” Before the work …
[6] In the world of shady post-9/11 politics, an innocent man (Omar Metwally) is seized by the CIA and tortured in a foreign country while his wife (Reese Witherspoon) and a doubtful CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) work on opposite sides of the world to help him. Rendition is a solid drama/thriller from Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, Ender’s Game), who refrains from sensationalizing any violence or indulging …
[5] Bette Davis stars as a woman who marries a banker (Claude Rains) to protect her brother from embezzlement charges. Claude Rains’ character knows full well that she’s marrying him for his money, but hopes that in time she’ll grow to love him. Well… she doesn’t. Bette Davis is a cold-hearted bitch in this movie, so all your sympathy goes to the long-suffering Rains, whose …
[7] Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist) made his directorial debut with Body Heat, about a woman who convinces her lover to murder her husband. You’ll never see William Hurt or Kathleen Turner sweatier (or hotter) than this. The film takes place during a Florida heat wave, and between the constant perspiration and John Barry’s steamy score, you’ll likely feel the humidity yourself. …
[8] Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a morally bankrupt ambulance chaser who sells gruesome crime video to L.A. television stations. First-time writer/director Dan Gilroy paints an interesting portrait of a disturbed man who may reflect our times more accurately than we’re ready to acknowledge. Nightcrawler shows its hand pretty early on, but Gyllenhaal and co-star Rene Russo, playing a cutthroat TV news producer, keep you engrossed …
[7] Ben Affleck stars as a man whose wife appears to have been violently abducted from their home. Due to his unusually calm demeanor, the local law enforcement and the public both begin to think he might have killed her, but the truth is something a little more complicated than that. All the fun in this David Fincher movie (based on the novel by Gillian …
[7] As if pre-teen and teenaged girls didn’t already scare the shit out of me, Catherine Hardwicke (who later helmed the first Twilight flick) had to go ahead and direct this harrowing descent into hormonal angst. Evan Rachel Wood turns in a fine performance as Tracy, a young lady we barely get to know before she’s experimenting with needles, drugs, petty crime, sex, cutting herself, …
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